Those Who Said They’ll Conspire Against Me Are Wearing Black, I am Wearing White- Wike Fires Shots At Atiku’s Camp

On Thursday, Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike attacked the campaign team of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar for their protest of the February 25 election results.

In the hotly contested presidential election, Atiku came in second with 6,984,520 votes, while winner Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) received 8,794,726 votes.

On Monday, the former Vice President led a “black uniform” protest to the National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Abuja, which included the PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, and Atiku’s running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa.

Following INEC’s declaration of Tinubu as the President-elect last Thursday, Atiku slammed the conduct of the elections, saying the umpire’s inability to upload results on the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) is a “rape of democracy”.

Wike, on the other hand, mocked the PDP leaders while speaking at the commissioning of Igwuruta internal roads in Rivers State’s Ikwerre Local Government Area (LGA).

“I won three of the Senate seats – three over three. Ask them, did they win three over three? You cannot win!” the governor said.

“I told them; they said they would conspire against me. Those who said they’ll conspire against me are those wearing black. I am wearing white and they’re wearing black.”

Wike is a member of the G5, a group of five disgruntled PDP governors who refused to campaign for Atiku because his candidacy allegedly violated the party’s constitution.

The schism between the G5, a group of five disgruntled PDP governors, including Wike, and the party’s national leadership, proved irreconcilable in the run-up to the presidential election.

Unequivocal about the return of the presidential seat to the South, the governor is widely credited with spearheading the APC’s historic victory in Rivers.

He, on the other hand, denies any anti-party activity, claiming that he fought for the country’s unity.

To him, the anti-party actions belonged to “them at the national level in PDP”.

Wike pondered what could be more “anti-party” than people abandoning the provisions of their party’s constitution that talk about zoning of elective and appointive offices.

“[Between] you that refused to obey the constitution of your party because of impunity, because you think you have the number, you refused to obey the provisions of the constitution of your party, and we that say Nigeria must be one, Nigeria must be united, Nigeria must work for our people, let everybody have hope, who committed anti-party [activities]? They are the ones who committed anti-party [activities],” he said.

On the fallout of the election, Wike assured PDP supporters the first phase of “the war” is over, adding that the second phase is about to begin.

“The second phase of the war: We must chase out the buccaneers and vampires. We are going to chase them out of the party and take our party and rebuild our party,” he said.

“These people left our party in 2014/2015. Our party lost. Again, they have come back, our party has lost again. They’ve destroyed our party.

“We’re going to chase them out of the party. They have no role to play for our party. I told them, agreement is agreement.”